Field
The present invention generally relates to a medical luminaire.
Prior Art
Photodynamic Diagnosis (PDD) is primarily used for recognition of tumors which for example fluoresce after administration of certain substances. For this purpose, luminaires are required which emit short-wave excitation light onto the area to be observed, by which the fluorescent areas are stimulated to fluoresce in the long-wave range. Observation is usually accomplished by means of a long-pass filter to suppress the short-wave excitation light. Details on this state of the art can be seen for example in DE 19902184 C1 or DE 19639653 A1.
A luminaire of this class is described in DE 10200601 1749 A1. The broad-band lamp used here is an arrangement consisting of several light emitting diodes, which together generate white light and one of which, which generates blue light, serves as the semiconductor lamp for generating the excitation light. Thus the semiconductor lamp serves both to generate the excitation light and to generate the corresponding spectral range of the broad-band light.
However, this also results in disadvantages, primarily because the semiconductor lamp in this type of design must be relatively broad-band. It therefore generates a very intense blue, outshining all other frequencies, wherein only a narrow frequency range, usable for excitation, actually excites the fluorescence. The intensive blue must be filtered out with a highly effective long-pass filter in order not to outshine the entire image, including the fluorescent effects, during observation.
Luminaires of similar class are known from DE 101 36 191 A1 and DE 93 17 984 U1 in which both the light of the broad-band lamp and the excitation light are transported together into a light guide fiber bundle. A laser diode is used as the semiconductor lamp. Thus a very simple design results.
A drawback in these designs on the other hand is that both the long-wave light and the short excitation light travel through the same glass fibers, thus through the same glass. This causes disadvantages, since the glass types are not optimally adapted to the wavelengths.